“Independence” from accountability and honest self-reflection

On Independence Day for the last 35 years during Morning Edition on NPR the staff has read the Declaration of Independence. Last year they added a discussion of some of the racist phrases in the document. This year, instead of reading it, host Steve Inskeep spent 11 minutes discussing one phrase: “We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all men are created equal...” Historian Jill Lepore noted we usually indict the founders for proclaiming equality while owning slaves. But go easy on them. At that time the idea that even all white men were equal was quite radical. The country was putting that idea in a declaration saying they intend to take their place with the great nations of the world. That was bold. Annette Gordon-Reed wrote a book about the children of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of his slaves. Gordon-Reed said that by 1791 black people were quoting Jefferson’s words back to him to say this declaration has not been fulfilled. They recognized the importance of those words. In 1848 the convention of women at Seneca Falls, New York grabbed ahold of those words to form the foundation of the women’s suffrage movement. Frederick Douglass was at that women’s meeting. Through those words he saw his way forward was not to denounce the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. That would never give him what he wanted. Instead, he proclaimed the founding principles and showed how they were not being met. Of course, there was pushback. The Supreme Court, in the 1857 Dred Scott case, declared the meaning of “all men created equal” did not include black men. At the start of the Civil War Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens said that Jefferson was wrong to promote equality, that the federal government was founded on the “great truth” that the black man is not equal to the white man. Stephens was wrong about Jefferson promoting equality. But he was right that the government was founded on inequality. After the Civil War the 14th Amendment and its equal protection clause finally added Jefferson’s ideal to the Constitution. That was followed by the Supreme Court limiting the federal power to defend it as new groups added claims of equality. When Native people became citizens in 1961 they claimed Jefferson’s words. Martin Luther King did too during the March on Washington in 1963. Harvey Milk claimed them for LGBTQ people in 1978. Though Jefferson didn’t free his slaves, and it would have been good if he had, he did point a way towards the future. Inskeep said:

Many of today's debates turn on equality. What's it mean to have an equal shot at education? A Supreme Court case over using race in university admissions included arguments for equality on both sides. Other cases asked, what's it mean to have an equal chance to vote? Or how far can you push a demand for equal treatment by a business? And that's just in the last few days.

Most people accept as truth that all people are created equal. That accounts for the progress we’ve made towards making it true. This evening on NPR sixth or seventh generation descendants of Frederick Douglass recited the words of one of his speeches given in the 1850s inspired by that women’s conference and Jefferson’s words. “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” You white people may celebrate your independence, but we black people haven’t seen it yet. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Daily Kos Denise Oliver Velez included some cartoons. One by Jesse Duquette shows Uncle Sam looking in a mirror and saying “Happy 4th of July, buddy.” and a Klansman saying from the mirror, “Backatcha, pal.” However, what is more interesting to me is the caption Duquette added:

In a nation that forces 10-year-olds to give birth and shields students from books about an uncomfortable history, “Happy Independence Day” can only mean “independence” from accountability and honest self-reflection.

In a cartoon by Kevin Frank, tweeted by Zack Hunt, a man is in a fast food hamburger joint and the young man behind the counter tells him:

I’m sorry sir, but gluttony is a sin and it would compromise my religious beliefs to enable your sinful lifestyle.

Rob Schmitz of NPR talked to Natasha Warikoo, professor of sociology at Tufts University and author of Is Affirmative Action Fair? The Myth of Equity in College Admissions. Since Warikoo tends to be wordy, I’ve summarized her important points. Asking if the admissions process is fair is the wrong question. Being fair is saying admission is a reward for achievement. But a college or university has a different goal of helping the next generation contribute to a shared society. So admission shouldn’t look at what a prospective student has done but what they will do. Allowing student to learn in a racially diverse college will improve them as leaders. That will benefit our entire American society. Yes, colleges should end legacy admissions. But doing so won’t compensate for the loss of affirmative action. Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg gave a master class in how to respond to Republicans. Highlight their strangeness and contrast that with what Democrats are doing. Eleveld says there’s a lot of strangeness to highlight and contrast: The Republican rush to defend the nasty guy, obsession with investigations that go nowhere, and attacks on bodily autonomy and equity. What Buttigieg was responding to was a weird homo-phobic/erotic ad by the Ron DeathSantis campaign. If you really wanted to find that ad I’m sure it’s online somewhere, as are several descriptions and deconstructions. But why would you want to do that to yourself?

"I'm going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders," Buttigieg said Sunday on CNN's “State of the Union,” "and just get to the bigger issue that is on my mind whenever I see this stuff in the policy space, which is, again: Who are you trying to help, who are you trying to make better off, and what public policy problems to you get up in the morning thinking about how to solve?"

I saved a few articles about DeathSantis so I could talk about them all at once. I’m pleased that I’ve been able to ignore him. So the things I have are more than a month old and I’ve lost a couple to the Twitter black hole. In a pundit roundup from the end of May Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times discussing DeathSantis’ lack of policy initiatives.

But the press hasn’t begun to devote sufficient attention to the curious experiment DeSantis has launched, based on the hypothesis that it’s possible to win a presidential nomination, not to mention a presidential election, by appealing exclusively to a bloc of racists, antisemites, gun nuts and other nightcrawlers of the far right. An America led by DeSantis as he has portrayed himself thus far would be a dystopian hellhole. Let the examination begin. It would be proper to start with scrutiny of DeSantis’ positions on the most important geopolitical issues of our time, if they could be detected.

Dworkin added, “Well, that’s disqualifying.” Next was a quote by Mariano Alfredo of the Washington Post that can be summarized as DeathSantis saying once in the White House he would consider pardons for the January 6 offenders. Again, Dworkin responded, “That, right there, is disqualifying.” I have notes on another cartoon by Jesse Duquette (alas, the link is lost to Twitter). It is a cartoon from the beginning of May of DeathSantis saying something like, “How many trans kids do I need to bully before I’m taken seriously?” My notes also suggest Peggy Noonan had a great quote about DeathSantis. So I read one of her articles about what kind of candidate she thought he would be. I didn’t see anything special. Then I read an article by Ursula Few from mid March on PolitiZoom and the quote was right on top. The rest of the article is a rebuttal to the Noonan article I read. DeathSantis would not be a good leader, he’s not a good candidate, and Noonan was too gentle on him. But that Noonan quote is not at all gentle in describing DeathSantis:

He’s got a vibe like he’d unplug your life support for his cell phone.

Dartagnan of the Kos community posted an article last week that says climate change is finally being properly discussed in the mainstream media. They’re now reporting both the weather and the cause. What did it is the smoke blanketing the north and east and heat smothering the south. The articles are also being clear these weather patterns are caused by climate change. It seems the mantra “while it is not possible to attribute one event to climate change,” is finally on its way out. I listened to an episode of Gaslit Nation from a week ago, hosted by Andrea Chalupa. I think this is a regular episode and not a bonus restricted to donors. Her guest was Olga Lautman, an expert on the Russian mafia, also known as the ruling elite of the Russian Federation. The episode is titled Is Russia Headed Towards Collapse? Olga’s short answer: Yes. Well, at least Putin is finished and the rest of the oligarchs will be preoccupied with shooting at each other. The end didn’t start with Prigozhin’s little coup. It started last fall when Ukraine did that big sweep to liberate territory east of Kharkiv. At that time the oligarchs and the security service (which actually runs the country – for a cut of the action) realized Putin can’t win this war. It will only lead to Russia losing its gains, losing Donbas, and losing Crimea. Therefore Putin must go. The other big thing these oligarchs are concern about is the longer this war lasts the longer foreign governments and international agencies are going to be poking into their corrupt finances. All of this internal Russian turmoil is, of course, of benefit to Ukraine. The longer they’re focusing on shooting at each other the less they’re focused on Ukraine. While Russia probably won’t pull out – Ukraine will still have to push them out – once Russia is out there won’t be a time of rebuilding before attempting again. By the time Russia is ready for another attempt Ukraine will be in NATO. That turmoil is also a benefit to the US and the rest of the world. While Russians are focused on internal affairs they will be doing less interference in US elections. Though the 2024 election might be a last gasp of attempting to put a Russian asset in the White House. A user’s question got both Lautman and Chalupa talking about corruption in Russia and in the US. In addition to voting we should be encouraging our local news services in uncovering corruption in our own city, county, and state governments as well as in the national government. It was a private citizen looking into corruption in the Supreme Court that got ProPublica interested, which revealed Clarence Thomas’ sugar daddy. Alas, local newspapers are dying.